Letter: Superfund site not safe for fire debris sorting

Share this:

I feel it is not a good decision to use the Koppers site as a debris sorting area due to the soil conditions that have left this area a Superfund site.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it will cover the area in question with a barrier and additional soil. The government cannot guarantee this will be effective to prevent the soil under its “barrier” from being stirred up.

No one is supposed to come into contact with the soil at the location. Even if a barried is laid down, someone has to be there to actually do that work. We are talking heavy metals, dioxin, PCB. This site is dangerous to work on, and to say the five-year review had nothing significant to report about, what about the testing for the chicken eggs in the area? The groundwater testing that has been done?

This is a community that has been told “everything will be OK” before, yet we had to leave our community when the auxiliary spillway was ready to collapse. You cannot say we will have no worries whatsoever when crews and people, trucks and material flow into this hazardous waste site.

I can hear it now: It’s just concrete, a few car parts, gee. Really. Would you put this in your backyard? Why do they want to put this in our backyard?

Find another site. What about the dump? Or do they want this material there? If not, why not?